Jeremy Smith, Governor’s Chair for Molecular Biophysics, was interviewed by the Knoxville News Sentinel about a multiyear, multimillion-dollar research effort at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to better understand how mercury behaves. Smith also directs the Center for Molecular Biophysics at ORNL. He is currently running simulations on the Jaguar supercomputer — the world’s third-fastest computer and perhaps the best for science applications — that may help scientists understand a protein molecule involved in the bacterial process of detoxifying mercury.